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THE  COUNTRY  CHURCH 


Volume  3 


6  3  o  .  "3  o  & 


P 


V,  0 


Federal  council  of  the  churches  of  Christ  in 
America.  What  every  church  should  know  about 
its  community. 

General  Association  of  Congregational  Churches 
of  Massachusetts,  Advance  reports  of  various 
committees,  1908  and  1909 

McElfresh,  F.  The  country  Sunday  school 

MclTutt,  M.  B«  Modern  methods  in  the  country  church 

MclTutt,  M«  B-«  A  post-graduate  school  with  a  purpose 

Massachusetts  Federation  of  Churches,  Quarterly 
bulletin.  Pacts  and  factors,  October  1910 
"The  part  of  the  church  in  rural  progress  as 
discussed  at  the  Amherst  Conference , w 

Root,  E,  T.  State  federations 

Taf  t ,  A,  B.  The  mistress  of  the  rural  manse 

Taf t ,  A.  B.  The  tent  mission 

Taylor a  G.  Basis  for  social  evangelism  with  rural 
applications 

Wells,  G,  P.  An  answer  to  the  Hew  England  country 
church  question, 

Wells,  G«  P.  What  our  country  churches  need 

Wilson,  W,  H.  The  church  and  the  transient 

Wilson,  W.  H.  Conservation  of  boys 

Wilson,  W.  H.  The  country  church 

Wilson,  W,  H,  The  country  church  program 

Wilson,  W,  H.  Don't  breathe  on  the  thermometer 

Wilson,  W.  H.  The  farmers'  church  and  the  farmers' 
£2  college 

CO 

co  Wilson,  W,  II,  Getting  the  worker  to  church 
a. 

V) 


Wilson,  W.  H.  The  girl  on  the  farm 

Wilson,  W.  H«  How  to  manage  a  country  life 
institute 

Wilson,  W.  II*  "Marrying  the  land." 

Wilson,  W.  H.  ¥o  need  to  "be  poor  in  the  country 

Wilson,  W.  H.  Synod's  opportunity 

Wilson,  W.  H.  What  limits  the  rural  Evangel 


««>19414 


The  church  and  country  life.  Pamphlet  issued 
by  the  Board  of  Home  Missions  of  the  Presby* 
terian  Church* 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2011  with  funding  from 

Boston  Library  Consortium  Member  Libraries 


http://www.archive.org/details/revivalofinteres03wils 


THE  COUNTRY  CHURCH  71 

The  subject  of  the  address  of  the  third  speaker,  Rev.  War- 
ren H.  Wilson,  Superintendent  of  the  Department  of  Church 
and  Country  Life,  of  the  Presbyterian  Board,  was  the  Re- 
vival of  Interest  in  the  Rural  Church. 

THE  REVIVAL  OF  INTEREST  IN  THE   COUNTRY 

CHURCH 

There  is  no  need  to  take  time  to  sketch  for  this  audience 
the  revival  of  interest  in  country  life  and  in  rural  institutions. 
Before  the  report  of  President  Roosevelt's  Country  Life  Com- 
mission was  published  the  problem  was  sociological  and  was 
concerned  mainly  with  New  England.  Since  that  time  it  has 
been  an  economic  group  of  problems,  because  that  Commis- 
sion insisted  that  the  causes  of  rural  changes  are  in  the  social 
economy.  The  way  the  farmer  gets  a  living  is  undergoing 
reconstruction,  and  with  it  rural  institutions  are  being  rebuilt. 

There  are  those — I  wonder  if  any  are  here  present — who 
believe  that  the  farmer  will  desert  his  home  in  the  country 
and  come  to  live  in  villages.  Already  the  merchant  has  gone 
to  the  village,  the  better  schools  are  in  the  villages,  and  it 
is  hard  to  improve  the  country  schools.  It  looks  as  if  the 
farmer  were  abandoning  the  one-room  rural  school.  The 
preachers  throughout  the  United  States  generally  live  in 
the  villages,  and  preach  in  the  country  where  they  do  not 
live.  I  do  not  hold  with  those  who  think  that  the  American 
farmer  will  ever  be  content  to  live  in  a  village  and  farm  the 
open  country.  But  I  call  to  your  attention  that  there  are 
those  who  so  think,  and  it  is  a  problem  of  profound  import- 
ance to  determine  whether  it  is  better  for  the  farmer  to  be 
a  villager  or  a  land  holder,  living  in  the  country. 

The  country  churches  are  affected,  furthermore,  by  the 
increase  in  the  number  of  those  who  are  poor.  By  this  I  do 
not  mean  beggars,  but  people  under  economic  pressure.  The 
American  poor  man  is  he  who  does  not  own  productive  land 
or  tools.  These  people  are  now  represented  in  tenants  and 
workingmen  in  the  country.  Four  farmers  out  of  ten  in  the 
United  States  are  renters,  who  till  the  land  that  some  one 
else  owns.  These  men  have  no  use  for  a  church  that  is  not 
a  utility,  and  their  presence  in  the  country  is  closing  hun- 
dreds of  country  churches  in  all  the  settled  States.     Another 


72  THE  COUNTRY  CHURCH 

trouble  with  the  country  is  that  religion  has  been  reduced 
to  mere  preaching.  Country  people  have  taken  the  evangelist 
at  his  word  when  he  said:  "All  you  need  is  the  salvation 
of  your  soul."  Now,  I  am  a  pastor  of  sixteen  years'  experi- 
ence. I  believe  in  evangelism.  I  never  let  a  year  pass  with- 
out a  season  of  appeal  to  the  individual  to  give  his  heart 
privately  and  publicly  to  the  Lord.  But  evangelism  that 
denies  other  religious  experiences,  evangelism  that  claims  a 
monopoly,  is  destructive  to  church  life  in  the  country,  for 
when  the  farmer  is  convinced  that  the  horizon  of  salvation  is 
bounded  by  his  soul,  and  convinced  that  religion  consists  in 
his  destination  for  Heaven,  he  is  ready  at  once  to  sell  his 
farm  and  pack  his  goods  for  Dakota  or  Texas.  He  has  no 
obligations  to  the  community ;  and  that  is  what  ails  the 
country  church.  We  have  not  a  religion  that  holds  the 
people,  but  a  religion,  instead,  that  makes  nomads  of  them. 

The  trouble  with  the  church  in  the  country  is  not,  however, 
mainly  the  fault  of  the  preachers.  Much  more  influential 
than  the  preacher  are  those  economic  types  who  express  the 
exploitation  of  land.  The  renter,  the  retired  farmer,  and  the 
landlord  are  figures  of  greater  influence  upon  the  country 
church  than  preachers,  good  or  bad.  There  is  nothing  in 
homiletics  and  nothing  in  the  doctrines  of  any  of  our  churches 
that  matches  the  influence  of  a  vicious  system  of  farm  ten- 
antry. None  of  our  pastors  has  yet  attained  to  the  power 
over  a  country  population  which  the  landlord  possesses  who 
owns  the  land  and  does  not  live  on  it;  who  exacts  the  rent, 
but  does  not  care  for  the  people.  In  no  part  of  this  country 
is  the  condition  so  withering  as  that  in  which  retired  farmers 
live  who  have  sold  their  land  and  taken  money  instead.  These 
men  are  becoming  poorer,  because  the  value  of  money  is  less, 
while  the  land  they  owned  is  of  greater  value  all  the  time. 
Right  here  is  the  trouble  with  the  country  church.  It  is 
the  economic  condition  that  is  reflected  in  its  present  state. 

I  can  name  other  factors  in  the  rural  problem  which  are 
reflected  in  the  condition  of  the  church.  The  farmer  in 
America  is  not  well  trained  for  his  task.  The  schools  in  the 
country  are  training  him  for  every  other  task  than  farming. 
They  hold  before  his  children  the  ideal  of  professional  work 
and  the  salaries  of  professional  men.  They  do  not  inculcate 
the  ideals   of  a  working  and  productive  population.      The 


THE  COUNTRY  CHURCH  73 

result  is  our  farmers  are  to-day  succeeding  because  we  have 
a  rising  market,  the  values  of  land  are  increasing,  and  the 
farmer  can  borrow  more  money  every  five  years.  The  prices 
of  produce  are  going  up  and  the  farmer  can  get  a  somewhat 
better  income  than  he  formerly  could  for  his  stuff;  so  we 
have  the  condition  referred  to  by  Sir  Horace  Plunkett,  under 
which  a  people  can  thrive  with  bad  methods  so  long  as  there 
be  a  rising  market.  But  I  call  you  to  witness  this  day  that 
the  church  is  a  faithful  institution,  and  the  Lord  has  made  it 
so  reliable  an  index  of  the  people's  actual  welfare  that  it  is 
unaffected  by  prices,  but  is  affected  only  by  values.  The 
values  of  land  in  the  country  are  going  down,  even  though 
the  prices  go  up.  The  farmer  in  Illinois  who  told  me  that 
when  his  land  was  producing  ninety  bushels  of  corn  per  year 
it  was  worth  seventy-five  dollars  per  acre,  and  admitted  that 
now,  when  it  produces  forty-eight  bushels  of  corn  per  year 
it  is  worth  one  hundred  and  seventy-five  dollars  per  acre,  gave 
a  clear  illustration  of  this  condition.  In  his  neighborhood 
the  churches  in  the  country  were  steadily  going  down,  with 
the  falling  productiveness  of  the  land. 

I  will  name  just  three  more  conditions  in  the  country 
briefly.  The  churches  are  hopelessly  divided.  To  that  I 
need  merely  refer.  Young  people  are  unsupplied  with 
recreative  life.  Wherever  people  work,  there  they  are  auto- 
matically inclined  to  play ;  but  the  open  country  is  expulsive 
with  reference  to  recreation.  Villages  and  towns,  therefore, 
provide  an  over-plus  of  moving  picture  shows  and  cheap 
theatres,  while  the  country  shows  a  poverty  of  recreation 
and  of  normal  social  life.  Worst  of  all,  the  country  is  without 
leadership.  Farmers  deny  that  any  one  is  their  leader. 
They  refuse  to  recognize  the  leadership  of  any  other  farmer. 
In  fifty-three  communities  in  Pennsylvania  where  our  churches 
are,  we  discovered  only  one  in  which  a  farmer  was  recognized 
as  the  leader  among  farmers,  and  we  discovered  sixteen  in 
which  the  people  by  unanimous  voice  declared  that  no  one 
is  their  leader.  The  state  of  the  churches  in  these  com- 
munities showed  clearly  that  leadership  is  wholly  lacking 
among  them. 

Now  you  have  asked  me  what  the  Department  of  Church 
and  Country  Life  is  doing  to  solve  these  problems?  First 
of  all,  we  are  making  sociological  surveys   of  communities 


74  THE  COUNTRY  CHURCH 

and  counties.  We  begin  by  surveying  communities  in  which 
our  churches  are,  making  as  careful  a  study  of  all  the 
churches  as  of  our  own,  and  describing  the  schools  with  the 
same  thoroughness  as  we  devote  to  the  churches.  The  more 
work  of  this  sort  we  have  done,  the  more  thoroughly  we  have 
found  it  necessary  to  do  the  work.  Using,  therefore,  the 
methods  prepared  in  part  by  university  professors,  we  are 
now  studying  counties,  covering  the  whole  population  of  the 
county,  sending  a  trained  man  into  every  community,  whether 
there  is  a  church  of  our  faith  and  order  or  not,  and  recording 
for  each  community  and  then  for  the  county  as  a  whole  the 
conditions  which  prevail  among  all  the  people.  The  condi- 
tions studied  are  economic,  social,  educational  and  religious. 
We  record  every  experience  that  has  an  effect  upon  religious 
life,  and  we  regard  religious  life  as  the  resultant  and 
equilibrium  of  all  these  effects.  The  church  is  the  register,  in 
our  philosophy,  of  all  the  vital  conditions  in  that  community 
and  that  territory.  We  are  thus  providing  a  body  of  knowl- 
edge of  country  life  on  which  a  new  theory  and  a  new  method 
of  church  work  can  be  based.  We  are  doing  this  for  all  the 
churches,  partly  because  it  is  impossible  to  do  for  ours  alone, 
and  partly  because  it  is  the  new  kind  of  evangelism  that  we 
believe  to  be  worth  while.  I  need  not  say  that  we  have  no 
purpose  of  extending  our  own  denomination  by  this  kind  of 
work.  Our  purpose  is  solely  reconstruction  and  strengthen- 
ing of  the  churches  already  in  existence. 

This  body  of  knowledge  will  be  of  value  as  a  basis  of 
speeches,  articles,  books  and  other  publications  to  be  used 
by  our  men  in  supervision  of  churches.  Are  you  aware  that 
we  have  only  one  standard  that  now  prevails,  and  one  pro- 
gramme that  is  general  among  all  the  Protestant  churches? 
That  programme  is  the  conversion  of  the  individual  soul. 
That  is  the  only  programme  the  churches  have.  It  must 
be  the  first  factor  in  any  programme  for  the  country  church 
or  for  any  church,  but  to  be  reduced  to  this  one  principle 
alone  is  to  have  a  weak  and  disappearing  church  policy. 
The  Protestantism  that  consists  of  mere  evangelism  is  a 
Protestantism  that  cannot  stand  between  Mormonism  and 
Catholicism. 

This  survey  work  will  be  followed  up  by  platform  work 
and  publicity,   and  by  every  effort  to  bring  about  a  new 


THE  COUNTRY  CHURCH  75 

state  of  mind  among  ministers  and  church  officers,  on  a  basis 
of  the  results  obtained  by  the  study  of  churches  in  the 
country,  and  the  conditions  surrounding  them,  but  it  can 
only  be  made  effective  through  supervision  in  the  churches 
of  trained  and  intelligent  men,  who  recognize  the  need  of 
reconstruction,  and  who  use  the  knowledge  obtained  by  these 
methods  of  research. 

The  results  of  the  surveys  are  graphically  presented  in 
charts,  through  pictures  and  by  diagrams,  by  banners, 
streamers,  mottoes  and  in  every  way  by  which  these  results 
condensed  and  made  luminous  can  be  put  into  the  mind  of 
the  common  man.  Ordinary  people  will  not  read — indeed, 
I  refuse  to  read  myself — a  statistical  table.  Life  is  too  short 
for  most  of  us  to  spend  on  somebody's  array  of  figures.  One 
business  of  our  survey  men  is  to  put  up  their  results  into  such 
graphic  form  that  the  ordinary  inattentive  church  member 
has  ability  to  understand  them.  In  this  way  we  can  accom- 
plish something  in  the  change  of  church  opinion  in  the 
future. 

The  second  great  element  in  our  solution  of  the  problem 
and  the  second  factor  in  the  revival  of  the  country  church 
is  a  programme  of  action.  We  will  learn  a  great  deal  more 
by  doing  something  in  the  country  church  than  we  will  by 
thinking  about  it.  A  minimum  of  philosophy  and  a  maximum 
of  sendee  will  bring  us  to  a  better  day.  Now,  there  are 
only  two  organizations  that  get  on  in  the  country  without 
supervision.  In  rural  waters  there  are  only  two  types  of 
craft  that  float  universally  and  go  forward.  These  two  are 
churches  and  schools.  The  grange  is  a  type  of  the  third, 
which  is  very  general,  but  the  efforts  of  the  rural  Y.  M.  C.  A. 
to  launch  a  local  association  have  so  far  been  futile.  In  con- 
trast to  the  county  Y.  M.  C.  A.,  which  would  not  last  three 
months  without  supervision,  the  country  church  is  an  organ- 
ization which  you  find  it  very  hard  to  kill.  When  it  is 
weakest,  then  it  is  most  tenacious.  This  is  the  clue  to  the 
programme  of  action.  Our  business  is  to  revive  and  recon- 
struct the  church  that  is  on  the  ground,  and  for  this  purpose 
our  Department  has  in  every  public  meeting  of  any  conse- 
quence brought  those  present  to  the  recognition  of  a  pro- 
gramme and  to  an  agreement  as  to  common  action  along 
definite  lines,  to  which  I  will  devote  just  a  word. 


76  THE  COUNTRY  CHURCH 

The  Department  has  in  every  gathering  of  ministers  and 
church  officers  engaged  the  men  and  women  present  in  a 
covenant  of  action.  We  name  this  "The  Country  Church 
Programme."  These  ministers,  and  officers,  and  Godly 
women  go  home  pledged  to  promote  scientific  agriculture, 
to  undertake  the  reconstruction  of  country  schools,  to  fed- 
erate the  churches — at  least  to  act  in  co-operation  with  other 
churches  and  with  community  organizations ;  to  organize  the 
recreative  life  of  the  young  people  on  the  basis  of  the  com- 
munity and  under  the  leadership  of  the  church,  and  last 
and  most  practical  of  all,  to  undertake  the  increase  of  the 
minister's  salary  to  meet  his  present  necessities.  Of  course, 
they  do  not  attain  uniform  success  in  these  enterprises,  but 
the  volume  of  correspondence  in  our  office  shows  that  this 
programme  of  action  is  having  effect.  It  is  focusing  the 
activities  of  the  country  churches  upon  certain  lines  of  work, 
and  it  is  giving  to  the  aggressive  spirits  in  our  churches 
certain  verified  and  social  principles  on  which  to  work.  Every 
one  of  these  principles  mentioned  can  be  brilliantly  illus- 
trated in  instances  of  churches  which,  under  guidance  of  this 
Department  have  undertaken  the  reconstruction  of  their  work 
on  these  lines. 

For  instance,  there  is  a  swiftly  growing  spirit  of  federa- 
tion of  the  churches.  It  does  not  look  at  all  toward  church 
union.  At  least,  if  it  does  make  that  mistake,  it  promptly 
retreats,  and  recognizes  that  the  path  is  one  of  co-operation, 
not  of  consolidation.  The  present  stage  of  this  federation 
spirit  is  a  growing  geniality  between  ministers  and  churches 
in  the  community,  especially  those  most  closely  associated 
and  most  likely  to  compete  with  one  another.  Numerous 
instances  of  this  could  be  given,  and  it  is  fair  to  say  that 
where  this  principle  of  federation  is  clearly  recognized  the 
churches  are  rapidly  proceeding  toward  the  experience  of 
it.  I  could  name  ministers  who  are  definitely  reconstructing 
their  communities,  using  the  agricultural  knowledge  of  the 
State  schools  for  effecting  a  complete  change  in  the  life  of 
their  people.  Numerous  instances  are  known  to  you.  No 
doubt  the  ministers  who  are  using  the  recreative  principle 
to  reconstruct  an  old  church  are  coming  to  have  a  fine 
philosophy  of  recreation,  and  to  see  clearly  that  its  relations 
to  religion  are  not  casual,  but  essential.     In  some  instances 


THE  COUNTRY  CHURCH  77 

a  group  of  people  in  the  church  have  accomplished  even  the 
reconstruction  of  the  common  schools.  Though  this  is  the 
slowest  reform  of  all,  it  is  at  the  same  time  the  most  vital. 
The  Department  stands  behind  this  programme  of  action 
with  continual  attention,  distributing  of  leaflets,  publishing 
of  articles,  suggesting  and  devising  as  to  methods  and  fur- 
nishing resources  by  which  to  push  the  campaign  of  action 
and  keep  it  informed  and  encouraged. 

We  use  another  method  in  supplying  post-graduate  study 
for  our  ministers.  The  Department  has  offered  to  the 
theological  seminaries,  and  when  most  of  them  declined  the 
offer,  to  certain  of  the  great  universities,  to  assemble  a  group 
of  selected  ministers  on  condition  that  the  institution  will 
provide  certain  definite  courses  of  study.  These  courses  of 
study  are  just  the  courses  demanded  in  our  theological  semi- 
naries by  the  students  who  want  to  go  into  the  ministry. 
In  a  very  few  seminaries  only  have  they  been  provided,  and 
in  most  seminaries  the  demand  of  the  students  has  been  met 
either  with  a  flat  refusal  or  by  referring  the  students  to  the 
nearby  university.  Students  in  Union  Seminary  to  the  num- 
ber of  seventy-five,  about  one-fourth  of  the  student  body,  go 
to  Columbia  for  such  courses  as  this. 

These  courses  being  provided  in  response  to  the  request  of 
our  Department  by  such  institutions  as  Auburn  Seminary, 
University  of  Wisconsin,  Summer  School  of  the  South, 
University  of  Missouri,  Grove  City  College,  the  Department 
pays  a  portion  of  the  traveling  expenses  of  the  ministers 
selected  and  thus  assembles  a  group  of  earnest  men  for  post- 
graduate study,  much  needed  and  much  desired.  These 
ministers  are  selected  by  reason  of  some  definite  promise  in 
their  work  and  some  particular  genius  in  which  they  are 
distinguished.  The  result  has  been  most  happy,  and  prob- 
ably no  method  used  by  our  Department  is  of  greater 
influence  in  arousing  and  enlisting  ministers  for  work  in  the 
country — happy,  enthusiastic,  intelligent  work — than  this 
method  of  Summer  school  training  for  country  ministers. 

This  revival  of  interest  in  the  country  church  has  three 
characteristics  which  must  be  mentioned  for  completeness. 
The  chief  of  them  is  this :  It  is  a  revival  that  declares  that 
the  church  is  rooted  in  the  economic  life  of  the  people.  The 
sources  of  religious  institutions  are  obviously  deep  down  in. 


78  THE  COUNTRY  CHURCH 

the  vital  experience  of  the  people.  The  ways  of  the  people 
in  getting  a  living  are  the  most  influential  causes  of  church 
institutions. 

The  church,  on  its  part,  is  the  best  register  of  the  vital 
welfare  of  the  people.  It  is  an  almost  infallible  index  of 
the  well-being,  stated  in  its  best  terms,  of  any  broad  popula- 
tion we  may  study.  This  is  the  opinion  of  such  great  human- 
ists as  Sir  Horace  Plunkett.  This  is  the  philosophy  of 
Roosevelt's  Country  Life  Commission.  Before  that  Com- 
mission's report,  with  which  Sir  Horace  had  much  to  do,  the 
country  life  movement  was  purely  social.  It  was  concerned 
with  the  degeneracy  of  the  people  who  had  for  the  longest 
time  had  church  privileges  in  America — namely,  the  New 
England  country  people.  It  showed  that  the  church  philos- 
ophy of  New  England  had  been  defective.  Its  most  general 
human  concern  was  with  education.  The  early  philosophers 
in  New  England,  as  Hart,  Hutchins,  Hyde,  Dyke  and  Josiah 
Strong,  studied  the  social  life  of  the  people  and  declared 
that  the  church  should  be  a  social  centre.  This  is  true  and 
it  is  a  part  of  the  philosophy  of  the  new  revival,  but  it  is 
incomplete.  Since  1908  the  country  life  movement  has  been 
economic  in  its  basis.  At  first  very  cautiously  and  with  much 
objection,  but  gradually  with  increasing  acceptance  the 
churches  through  their  leaders  have  recognized  that  the 
church  that  is  to  prosper  in  the  country  must  promote  the 
economic  well-being  of  country  people.  This  well-being  is 
stated  in  the  terms  used  by  Dean  Bailey,  of  Cornell,  whose 
ideals  and  those  of  the  other  agricultural  leaders  are  such 
as  are  only  satisfied  in  religious  communities  in  the  country; 
that  the  church  is  the  inspiring  and  organizing  centre,  the 
minister  is  the  local  statesman,  and  the  people  a  worshipping, 
God-fearing,  thrifty,  industrious  Christian  folk.  Funda- 
mental to  such  a  community  is  a  satisfactory  economic  sys- 
tem. If  the  church  is  going  to  prosper  in  the  country,  we 
now  clearly  see  it  must  promote  and  demand  such  economic 
welfare. 

The  reason  why  this  economic  welfare  is  religious  is  seen 
in  its  relation  to  the  poor.  The  American  poor  are  the 
marginal  people  of  the  community;  the  people  who  do  not 
own  productive  land  or  tools.  The  prosperity  in  the  country 
community  is   conditioned  upon  their  prospering.      If  they 


THE  COUNTRY  CHURCH  79 

prosper,  the  community  as  a  whole  will  prosper,  and  the 
churches  will  be  maintained.  These  marginal  people  are  the 
boys  and  girls  of  the  community,  the  renting  farmers,  the 
farm  hands  and  other  persons  on  the  edge  of  country  life. 
The  church  will  prosper  which  binds  them  into  the  texture 
of  the  community  and  makes  them  a  part  of  a  lasting  and 
satisfactory  country  life. 

Another  feature  essential  to  this  revival  is  its  use  of  pub- 
licity. The  reconstruction  of  religious  thinking  is  so  vital 
and  so  thorough  that  it  cannot  be  wrought  through  church 
avenues  alone.  It  can  only  be  accomplished  by  appeal  to  the 
general  public.  If  it  were  left  to  the  churches,  they  never 
would  change  their  mind  or  mend  their  ways.  Therefore,  our 
Department  has  deliberately  appealed  to  the  public  from 
the  very  first.  This  is  not  a  preference  for  the  public,  but 
it  is  a  recognition  that  the  service  wTe  are  trying  to  render 
is  something  larger  than  ecclesiastical  service.  We  are  not 
merely  doing  church  work.  We  are  attempting  the  service 
of  society.  We  therefore  appeal  to  society.  The  influence 
of  this  method  of  publicity  has  been  very  great,  and  has 
registered  itself  in  church  and  in  religious  changes.  If  what 
I  have  just  said  is  true,  that  the  church  will  prosper  when 
the  people  prosper,  then  it  logically  follows  that  we  who  are 
attempting  to  better  the  prosperity  of  the  people  should 
appeal  to  the  people. 

This  has  been  done  through  the  use  of  the  agricultural 
press  to  which  our  Department  sends  regular  contributions. 
We  take  much  time  and  use  much  strength  in  writing  for 
other  than  Presbyterian  publications.  We  cheerfully  lend 
our  workers  to  colleges,  universities,  agricultural  institutions 
and  for  lectures  and  other  presentations  of  the  topic  by 
which  we  may  reach  the  general  public ;  and  we  welcome  the 
opportunity  to  address  public  conventions  and  conferences 
of  a  non-religious,  and  not  even  of  an  educational  character, 
so  long  as  they  furnish  an  opportunity  by  which  we  may 
reach  the  general  public. 

The  last  thing  I  want  to  say  is  that  this  is  recognized  very 
frankly  as  a  kind  of  evangelism.  Our  own  church  has  de- 
clared in  favor  of  social  service,  but  our  own  church  has 
not  defined  social  service.  We  are  therefore  working  in  the 
service  of  society,  and  we  are  preaching  that   the  country 


80  THE  COUNTRY  CHURCH 

church,  and  for  that  matter  every  church,  that  has  to  do 
with  productive  workers,  should  serve  human  society.  We 
are  telling  the  good  news  that  the  farmer  and  workingman 
are  God's  ministers.  They  are  more  divinely  appointed  than 
preachers  and  evangelists  are,  because  they  are  serving  the 
fundamental  and  initial  purposes  of  the  Heavenly  Father — 
namely,  to  feed  and  clothe  His  children  and  to  minister  to 
their  comfort.  This  is  not  a  form  of  words  with  our  Depart- 
ment, but  we  try  to  make  it  plain  and  sincere,  and  I  think 
that  this  impression  has  been  made  throughout  the  country. 

In  this  evangelism  the  converts  are  not  shocked  into  an 
assurance  as  to  their  own  eternal  future,  but  they  are  gal- 
vanized into  a  new  conception  of  the  use  of  their  lives  for 
the  community.  We  are  working  for  social  conversions.  I 
wish  I  could  tell  you  some  of  the  stories  of  the  changed  hearts 
of  men,  but  I  pride  myself  more  than  anything  else  upon 
a  certain  limited  number  of  men  of  exceptional  quality  who 
have  gone  into  the  Christian  church  anew,  with  faith  in  the 
church  and  a  belief  that  there  they  can  accomplish  the  work 
for  the  service  of  mankind  and  the  glory  of  God,  to  which 
they  have  given  themselves  outside  the  church  and  in  some 
neutral,  secular  way. 

The  first  baptism  of  the  spirit  gives  a  man  hope  of  eternal 
life.  If  he  has  not  this  hope,  we  can  do  nothing  with  him. 
But  the  evangelism  in  which  we  work  is  to  give  him  the  vision 
of  the  Kingdom  which  to-day  comes,  in  which  the  Master  now 
rules,  and  in  which  the  spirit  of  God  worketh  when  and  where 
and  how  He  pleaseth,  to  the  glory  of  the  Father,  in  this 
present  world. 

Adjournment  of  Evening  Session  at  9:45  P.  M. 


